One more thing...

Just one more thing to take care of, then you disappear.

Your house is scheduled to sell soon.

All that remains is what we carry in our hearts.

It is still hard to grasp, the fact you are gone.

Sometimes I wonder if I did enough, could I have insisted on different medical procedures, could we have saved you?

I assume all survivors go through this.

I no longer pick up the phone, wanting to call you and tell you the latest news; I no longer feel the heaviness of missing you...as often.

I still feel it...and I wonder...I hope...that you were "gone" at the end, that you never felt the struggle of those final days.

I found some videos of you, and it was so strange...you went to the hospital in December for a stomach ailment...30 days later, you were gone.  Although the disease usually takes 8 to 10 years to reach this stage, it appears you had been ill for a very long time, and we just did not know.

Sometimes that is the hardest thing to comprehend...you were so ill, and our lives were running at full speed, without any idea you were hearing the call to go home.

Perhaps the sorrow I feel is normal, the questions, the "20-20 hind sight" is par for the course...

Just one more thing...and all that remains is what we carry in our hearts.

I think that is best.

In my heart, you are still a young man giving me rides on your motorcycle...cooking out on the grill on summer nights...

In my heart, you will always be young, strong and smart.  I try not to remember the image at the end, the shell of a man.  Instead, I believe you had already left and were standing at the door of your mother and father's new home...calling them like you always did...

Smiling, and happy about going home.

Goodbye Dad, I will never stop missing you, but it is time to start running my own race again, and save my tears for when I am alone.